Cultural institutions

The origin of the museum in Kragujevac can be related to information dating from the first half of XIX century. Prince Miloš began creating his collection of paintings in June of 1823, when he received his first painting as a gift. Today's National museum was founded in 1949.

The activity of the museum is held in the following facilities: Amidža's Lodgings, The lodgings of Prince Mihailo, art gallery, The House of Ljubica Filipović, The House of Prota Miloje Barjaktarević, memorial houses in Dulene and Grošnica and The Modern gallery. The museum owns the departments of archeology, ethnology, the history of Kragujevac and Šumadija and fine arts.

The Old Foundry museum is situated in facility of the former Cannon foundry from 1882. It was founded in 1953. The museum is part of Zastava weapons factory. The building is a historic monument and it is under the protection of state as a cultural property. It owns a weapons collection and kit, machines and tools, archive material, photos, paintings and collection of medals, seals and cups; 5800 objects in total.
The permanent exhibition of the museum presents the history of Kragujevac's military factory - from its formation in 1853 to 1973. The exhibition of modern weapons is also included.

At the entrance to the Memorial park, a monumental building of the Museum “21st October” is built, where the architecture symbolic of Kragujevac's tragedy is emphasized. Building the towers without windows and doors, architect Ivan Antic had intention to show the hopelessness of the unarmed citizens in front of the machine-gun barrel. The red bricks are associated with the shed blood, 33 domes symbolize 33 mass tombs and the translucent plexiglas pyramids on top, present the last view of the victims towards the sky. The basis of the museum is made in the shape of the cross, the Christian symbol of suffering. The documents related to 21st October are kept, including the messages of the murdered citizens written in the last moments of life, items and photos that were found at them.

It was established in 1846 as one of the oldest reading rooms in Serbia, modeled after the reading room in Belgrade. Initiative of Janko Safarik was shown to Prince Milos Obrenović and he signed the Decree of foundation of the Public library in 14th June 1866. The end of XX century Public library marked with a collection of 271 610 books and with a big amount of organized cultural-educational events, as well as corporations with cultural institutions of the city, republic and abroad.

It was founded from a wish of the students to express their cultural and creative needs and skills. Now days it has outgrown that purpose and became one of the most significant cultural institutions in the city, which is engaged with organization of the art exhibitions, cultural and poetic evenings, concerts and the publishing.

Youth center is an institution which for years has been organizing many workshops (acting studio, music, aquarelle, caricature, comics, foreign languages, and chess).
It is a favorite meeting place for young people, for numerous high-quality concerts, art exhibits, and a place that fostered numerous theatrical, film and music artists Serbian scene.

Emerged during the struggle for national independence in the period when the foundations of cultural life in Serbia were laid, the theatre in Kragujevac shared the fate of its people, while maintaining continuity across a variety of formations and theater troupe. Updated after World War II, it became the most open city cultural institution whose activities felt in the wider community.

The theater was founded in 2003. It is a favorite place of the youngest citizens of Kragujevac. Although one of the newest theaters of its kind in Serbia, it enjoys great prestige both at home and abroad. The organizer of the puppet festival "Golden spark".

Located along the side of the complex department store "Belgrade", since 1980 it is part of the National Museum and thematic exhibitions are organized in it. The first exhibition was opened in March 1978. So far over 500 exhibitions of young and renowned artists from home and abroad have been organized.

Gallery activities represent a segment of Memorial Park "Kragujevac's October". The program concept is directed primarily to show that contemporary visual art and the most current events, both at home and at foreign art scene.

Rome is in its core business exhibition gallery and its work is based on the presentation of masterpieces of modern and contemporary art. The gallery also owns collection of works of important Serbian artists and artistic trends of the first half of the twentieth century.

In the immediate surroundings of Kragujevac there are 20 monasteries, some of them are dated from 14th and 15th century.